George Will has the insight to praise medical research by the taxpayer-funded National Institutes of Health (“Starved by the sequester,” Aug. 18). Hooray for George!

Will also has the courage (for a conservative) to bemoan the lack of funding to do even more to find cures for deadly disease.

But then comes the blind spot in journalism — Will succumbs to the failure of his bias. He blames the 2009 federal economic stimulus for inciting what he calls “the indiscriminate (taxpayer) hostility to public spending.” He says the public mood that prompted the sequester, which reduced the federal budget, was a result of the stimulus.

Never mind that the stimulus disbursed $608 billion to bail out banks, auto companies and mortgage lenders and since has recovered all but $58 billion. Never mind that it was hateful journalism from the far right that condemned the stimulus, demanded budget cuts and induced the sequester. In other words, never mind that it was Will and his ilk who brought us the insanity of the sequester in the first place.

Now it’s just another day at the office for George Will to criticize what he helped produce.

Mike Ricci, St. Paul

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